DreamWalking
by Matrix Refugee
Summary: Tatsumi has a visitor who offers to rid him of a pesky element in the office... or does he? Mild Muraki/Tatsumi


Title: "DreamWalking"

Author: "Matrix Refugee"

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Muraki/Tatsumi

Genre: Drama, Supernatural, Slash

Chapter: One-shot

Comments: I have no idea where this fic came from initially, though it's quite obviously inspired by Tsuzuki's weird dream at the very start of Vol 5 of the manga. I was going to remix this for another prompt on InsaneJournal's "porn_battle", in this case: "_Muraki/Tatsumi, substitute_," but the challenge was closed before I could write this. But I went ahead with it anyway (plus it gives me a chance to play with a theory of mine, that The Not So Good Doc might be able to "dreamwalk", ie. insert himself into people's dreams and mess with them...)

Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei, aka Descendants of Darkness, it s characters, concepts and other indicia, which are the intellectual property of Yoko Matsushita, Hiroko Tokita, Manga Entertainment, Viz Media, Hakusensha, Central Park Media, et al.

* * *

For once, Tsuzuki had remembered to file his paperwork, some of it even in a timely manner, but that meant a sizable pile had turned up on Tatsumi's desk late that afternoon. Considering Tsuzuki's work habits, Tatsumi always had to double-check the reports, to make sure nothing had been left out, before he could sort them and bring them to the file room.

"If you'd simply remember to submit your reports as you close the cases, instead of waiting to compile them all at once," Tatsumi murmured. "It would be less work for everyone involved, including yourself." The pages looked more like a schoolboy's tardy assignments: the edges rumpled, rings from the bottom of a coffee cup on some, smudges that might have been chocolate or the frosting from a cupcake, additions scribbled in the margins. The handwritten was just legible on most of them, but some were a mess of chicken scratch he could barely read. A few reports looked better-written and neater, even legible; he had a hunch that Kurosaki had filled these out. Tatsumi had suspected -- read hoped -- that the young new-comer would be a good partner to Tsuzuki and the hope had become a reality. No doubt Kurosaki has taken the matter of the tardy paperwork into his own young hands, and in that respect, he showed a maturity beyond his years, even beyond Tsuzuki's, despite being the younger partner.

Someone knocked on the door of Tatsumi's office. "The door is open, but I'm afraid I'm very busy," he called out.

The door opened and a tall man dressed from head to foot in white entered, carrying a sheaf of red roses in the crook of one arm.

"Good evening, Mr. Tatsumi, I was wondering if you could assist me with something?" he asked in an insinuating, sardonic voice.

Tatsumi stared at him over the rims of his glasses, recognizing the intruder's face from data collected by the public security sector following both the Nagasaki incident and the incident on board the _Queen Camellia_. "That would depend on what you had in mind, Murakl," he replied. "And if you don't mind, might I ask you one question in return for answering yours: How did you enter this place? Most mortals cannot cross the line and enter Meifu unless they have died already."

Muraki laughed, a rich but unpleasant and unsettling sound. "Unless the reports of me have been downplayed, you should know by now that I am no mere commonplace mortal. I have more than a few preternatural skills at my disposal, but I'm not stupid enough to show my hand. To return to my reason for being here, there is one piece of property belonging to the Ministry which I would like to purchase and get it off your hands."

"Property? What property are you referring to?" Tatsumi asked. He sensed his shadow collecting itself, ready to go on the defensive.

"You can quell your shadows, Mr. Tatsumi," Muraki said. "I was referring to your least useful employee, Mr. Tsuzuki Asato."

Tatsumi adjusted his glasses. "He may cost the Summons Section a good deal of its operating budget, but selling him wouldn't remedy the situation. His skills are beyond price."

"Mmm, he may command more than a few shikigami, but consider the cost of the reputation of your branch. Doesn't he make your department the laughing stock of the Ministry of Hades?" Muraki insinuated.

"He is a source of embarrassment, but he balances that when he actually manages to apply himself to his work," Tatsumi replied.

"Standing up for your one-time partner? I'm surprised that a meticulous man such as yourself would defend such a lazy deadweight," Muraki said, raising one eyebrow. "How touching. Wouldn't you really rather pay any price to be rid of him?"

Tatsumi sensed a dark, heady aura flowing from the intruder, only a moment too late for him to push it back. "No... I ..would rather... not pay," Tatsumi replied, thickly, gripping the edge of his desk to steady himself.

Muraki leaned over the desk top, the scent of the roses on his arm growing heavier, even cloying. "Would you rather receive compensation for the trouble he's cost you, then? You are the definition of 'financially prudent', or so I've heard. Name a price: I am well-equipped to pay any reasonable sum, even to half my family's fortune for that beautiful nuisance."

"Half a fortune?" Tatsumi mumbled.

"Yes, and it's hardly a paltry sum: my grandfather made some canny investments before and after the war, to say nothing of during the technology boom. I've followed in his footsteps, but then again, I've been told that I inherited his calculating personality."

"Admirable..." Tatsumi replied. "But ...Tsuzuki is not for sale."

Muraki's brows gathered in a frown, though his smirk did not leave his thin but sensuous mouth. "Hmm, you're certainly very easy on the eyes yourself, with those brilliant blue eyes of yours." He paused and took off his eyeglasses, tucking them into his breast pocket. "Very well, if the amethysts aren't for sale, I'll take the sapphires as a substitute."

"Whaah?" Tatsumi mumbled, still fighting the fog that clouded his mind. Before he could force his senses to collect themselves, Muraki stepped around the corner the desk, and turned Tatsumi's swivel chair back to front. Grabbing Tatsumi by the front of his shirt, Muraki pushed him down onto his back, across the desk top. A sheaf of papers and a shower of rose petals flew up around the both of them as Muraki leapt onto the desktop and straddled Tatsumi's slim hips, holding him down with both arms twisted behind his back. He paused, staring down at Tatsumi, the razor-sharp smirk on his face turning into a brutal grin that just showed the tips of his teeth.

"Beautiful, perhaps not as charmingly rumpled as Mr. Tsuzuki, but that can be arranged, or disarranged, rather," he said, thrusting his fingertips into Tatsumi's neatly combed hair and massaging his scalp, rumpling his hair out of shape. An electric charge flowed from Tatsumi's scalp and down his spine. His senses grasped at that charge, trying to draw it into his core and use it to revive his will. He gazed up at Muraki, into the other's silver-grey eyes and realized for the first time why Tsuzuki harbored such an attraction to this creature: the man above him might have a vampire's bloodlust, but he hid that behind the face of an angel, beautiful and cruel, irresistibly attractive due in part to his powers of suggestion and persuasion as well as his pale good looks, but as fearsome as a demon nonetheless. Someone as sensitive and suggestible as Tsuzuki would be easy prey for such a creature, no matter what revulsion and anger he might experience on the surface or in his heart.

But Tatsumi's attraction and acquiescence were not so easy to coerce; he was no slave to his senses: any response was purely a physical reaction, purely the effect of his sensory nerves relaying stimuli to his brain, which directed his flesh to quicken and awaken. As Muraki leaned down to run his lips along the side of Tatsumi's neck, the shadow-caster collected his wits and sent the charge that flooded his senses into his shadow. The darkness beneath him gathered itself, billowing up into a tangible form; he willed it to take the shape of a three-fingered hand.

"I'm afraid the sapphires aren't yours for the taking either," Tatsumi said. The shadow grabbed Muraki by the scruff of his neck and hurled him backward into the wall, hard enough to embed his body into the plaster. Muraki hung there for a moment, startled, before gravity took over and pulled him free, but he managed to drop gracefully to his feet.

"Well, it seems I am the one getting disheveled instead," Muraki said, his anger and frustration barely veiled behind his jest as he brushed plaster dust from the shoulders of his topcoat with one hand. "If you resort to such means to pass up my offer, then I won't trouble you any longer. For now, at least." --

Tatsumi jolted awake, finding he'd dozed off at his desk with his chin propped in the palm of one hand. His other hand had slid from the edge of the desktop, sweeping a sheaf of papers to the floor. Glancing down, he noticed one of the documents related to the incident on board the _Queen Camellia_, which no doubt had inspired the dream he'd awakened from.

He glanced at his watch, then looked up to the now darkened window. "I'd better continue this in the morning," he murmured, pushing back his chair and stooping to collect the papers at his feet. That was when he noticed a scattered handful of rose petals on the floor tiles which he did not remember seeing earlier....


End file.
